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Jim Carroll

Music, Life and everything else

No more altruism under Radiohead’s rainbow

Back in 2007, the music business story of the year was Radiohead’s decision to give away their new album “In Rainbows” for free. The majority of industry observers and commentators followed the party line that this was a revolutionary move. …

The problem lies in the fact that the band signed a brace of deals with XL Records and Sony subsidary ATO for the December 2007 physical release of “In Rainbows”.

Now, the RIAA and IFPI, the bodies who represent the labels Radiohead signed with, have sent in their legal eagles, asking blogs sharing the band’s material to stop.

“These recordings are owned by one of our member companies and have not been authorised for this kind of use,” said the RIAA, which represents major US labels, in one letter.

Given Radiohead’s previously stated stance on filesharing, you’d expect the band to be chomping at the bit to correct this situation. After all, do the labels really own the recordings or do they just have rights to exploit the physical distribution of the album?

Sadly, a band rep declined to comment when contacted by Torrent Freak.